W/B 13th February and 20th February 2012

Programme and Module Specification Update

I attended a meeting on Monday and then this was discussed again in the Associate Dean Forum. The Programme and module specification information is being taken from the PRISM documents and pasted into the word documents so they are ready to be amended. This should be completed by the end of February. The programme leaders then have to get the documents amended for U/G this needs to be by Easter and the core modules will be done first. The P/G ones need doing too after this date. The academics on the school liaison teams should be helping in the schools with this through workshops/ working with teams or individuals.

Senior Tutors for Research meeting

I attended this meeting where there was a focus on the graduate school. The VC came to the meeting to discuss this proposal which had been circulated to Senate previously. This proposal is for a virtual graduate school for research students. Some of the reasons for this include having a place to provide a sense of community and to have one place where development support can be co-ordinated. There was also discussion about whether there would be funding for students to go to conferences but funding for students remained in schools. The forum will send some comments about this proposal which is to go back to Senate.

Associate Deans for Education Forum

David was chairing this meeting and the main item was focused on a draft of the new education strategy. There was some discussion about this and the language within it and some minor changes. This was to be taken to the Education committee next and could not be shared at present. Other items that came up were the timing of the programme and module specifications again. Institutional review was also discussed and some of the areas where there were concerns at present related to information that was published.

Assessment Group

This is a group that has been set up for four meetings only to review extenuating circumstances and appeals. There will be some papers drafted to then have revisions to these policies approved through Senate.

Education Committee

This is the committee that replaced APPSC.

Student Union Report

The elections for SU officers had again begun and will be closing in two weeks with voting on 19^th March. The NUS had called for action to take place WB 12^th March related to cuts etc but our SU will not take part in the walk out on 14^th March but will take part in other actions. The SU have received several complaints lately about assessment turnaround following examinations in January and this will impact on the survey results. The SU president Rob asked that all schools urgently address this. There was a discussion about students’ expectations but also about what was being communicated to students. It was agreed that schools should e-mail students where this is an issue and cc the SU.  Last item from SU was related to them going around the sites to meet with groups of students.

Strategic Component of Vision document related to Education

There was a discussion about the continued development of the University Vision and where this was at present. Schools were currently completing their vision to go with this and there has been some work on an education component and research and knowledge transfer. The education component was discussed and there w ere some suggestions to add/amend some parts of this. This document at present is not public but will be shared once the Vice Chancellor has agreed and it is will be discussed at Senate on 7^th March.

Programme and Module Specifications

There was an update on changes and developments with programme and module specifications. PRISM is not to be used now from Monday 27^th for any amendments or updates only the word versions of documents that will made available this week.

The plan is that all UG programme specs are amended first then core and elective modules and then PG will take place too. The academic staff on each school liaison team will be helping in schools with these changes and should hopefully be involved in checking the quality of these but this needs discussing in each school with ADE. There will be approval in each school of revised specifications through some BOS mechanism and there will be an institutional approval check that I am involved in and we will be sampling documents from each school. There is yet to be confirmation of where the final documents will be held.

Student satisfaction

At present all surveys are running but response rates are currently low so students need to be encouraged to do this. The module evaluation response rates are now improving and are over 50% for most the spring evaluations will be done 26^th March.

QAA Institutional Review

There was an update on this and the pre meeting is in June and the visit is in October. Carol Vielba will be the lead academic for this for the institution. Carol is seeing all ADE’s/ Deans and HODS of services.

Annual Programme Evaluations

There was report on the 2010-2011 reports and a range of areas were noted but very positive comments about moodle and using technology to enhance learning and help from LDC so well done especially BLT team.